Future colleague has infantile and vaguely inappropriate websites

Question

I have recently been offered a job as a software developer at a small company. I was excited about this position - the colleagues I will be working with all seem clever and motivated, which is what attracted me to the job. I will be joining a small team, which is currently made up of two people, a manager and a recent hire. I was idly searching LinkedIn this evening to get an idea of the background of the recent hire, when I found a very juvenile and inappropriate set of domains run by him.

The domains are both named after and contain content related to juvenile but very NSFW content. I have reason to believe that this is not just an old, forgotten domain - the websites appear to have been regularly updated in recent years. This employee (judging by his LinkedIn history) must be about 30 years old. He still uses related usernames on multiple websites, including some that can only have been created in the last few years.

I feel as if this is incredibly juvenile and at the very least quite bizarre, and I am no longer sure I want to work with this person. I am concerned that he will bring this immature attitude into the workplace, and at a broader level I am slightly uncomfortable with the level of investment he has made into what is at best a very outdated meme. In such a small team I will not be able to avoid dealing with him on a regular, extended basis. I have several questions that I would like opinions on:

• Am I overreacting?
• How should I proceed with the job offer?
• Given that these websites are entirely personal, should I inform the company of it?

Answer 1

What people do in their own spare time is purely their business. None of what you have mentioned is illegal and unless he is bringing this to work with him and plastering photos of it all over his cubicle you shouldn't even acknowledge that you know this side to him. Everyone is entitled to a private life.

Answer 2

I'd advise you not to take the job as your coworker would certainly be the one who would be worse off, having to deal with being spied on and constantly judged.

Not only are you overreacting, you are being unprofessional. If he's not bringing it into the office, then it's none of your business.

If you take the job, don't bring it up, or you will learn, VERY QUICKLY one simple fact:

HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

Answer 3

I think you should decline this offer and seek employment elsewhere.

And I certainly hope you do not "inform" HR of your discovery in an attempt to try and screw over your former colleague, whom you have never met or been acquainted with, because his hobbies do not align with your morals.

I can already tell this will be a very toxic relationship if you were to work with this colleague judging by your demeanor in this post.

Please do your manager and colleague a favor and decline the offer.

Answer 4

Now that you've established this negative image in your mind even before you've started working with him, it's in your best interests to just seek other opportunities. This will only end up badly for everyone if you decide to continue with it.

Your discovery means absolutely nothing to the company, it's a personal project for a reason and by the looks of it, it's not even remotely related to what the company does, nor does he put out company-specific info out on his LinkedIn. It's none of their concern.

Just because you don't agree with what someone does outside of work doesn't necessarily mean it'll influence their work. Now you're only looking at one person, but what if you find someone else's private matters to be worse? Best to stay out of someone else's personal business.

You're badly overreacting and even attempting to bring someone's personal matters to the company you're not even employed at yet is quite unprofessional. Surely there's some other place out there where your potential colleagues satisfies you on moral grounds, seeing as that's a deal breaker for you.

Answer 5

I'm going to disagree with the other answers here.

In a two-person team, your interaction with your co-worker is going to be a major part of your daily life, and it's going to affect both you, him, and the company, and despite what the other answers are claiming, that interaction is most likely going to be suboptimal (see reasons below) -- and as a result, obviously is something you ought to take into account (but it may or may not be a dealbreaker, that's up to you to decide).

The interaction is going to be supoptimal for two reasons. First of all, you've already discovered that this person is immature and juvenile. Will you be able to interact with him in optimal fashion, considering your discoveries? Unless you're a robot, probably not. In fact, he could be the perfect working partner, and you'd still never be able to respect him. That perception isn't just going to go away because he happens to be a good programmer.

Secondly, if a person is immature and juvenile, that will also most likely tend to affect their interaction with you. The notion that people have the supernatural ability to act completely differently outside of work and at work is just absurd. If he really is immature and juvenile, trust me, that'll manifest itself in some way or another at work and which will cause a strain on your relationship.

In short, your personal relationships with your co-workers matter, especially in a two-man team. Ignoring that based on some superficial notion on "minding your own business" is terrible advice. You "mind your own business" when your co-worker prefers eggs rather than pancakes, or watches football instead of basketball. But extreme personalities are not their own business, it becomes your business too once you are to work with that person on a daily basis.